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WASHINGTON – Several Hoosier members of Congress were cautiously optimistic Tuesday night about President Obama’s plan to send 30,000 additional U.S. fighters and trainers to Afghanistan.
But Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, said either the number of troops is dramatically underestimated or the length of time is too short.
“It is ridiculous what he said tonight,” Souder said after the speech. “I could live with 30,000 (troops) if they acknowledged it might take 10 to 15 years.”
But he said Obama shouldn’t have said he will begin to withdraw troops in 18 months, and Souder said that time frame is “conveniently close” to the 2012 elections.
“The goal should be to defeat terrorism, not (to be concerned about) the next presidential election,” Souder said.
The most positive reaction came from Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who greeted the details of Obama’s speech with approval, calling it “the best chance to stabilize Afghanistan so that we may ultimately leave with America’s national security interests having been met.”
“No one wants to send more money or more American soldiers to Afghanistan, including me,” Bayh said in a statement issued by his office. “But we were attacked from that country, and 3,000 innocent Americans were killed. We must do what it takes to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a platform for attacks on the United States.”
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who met with Obama in the White House before the speech, issued a statement saying “the president has made a strong case for his course of action to the American people and the Congress.”
But Lugar said there are still many details to emerge, including the cost.
Obama did not discuss the long-term price of increasing the U.S. presence in Afghanistan by 44 percent except to say the policy would probably cost $30 billion this year.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, likened Obama’s decision to then-President Bush’s surge strategy in Iraq.
“If given the chance,” he said, that strategy “can succeed again.”
But Pence cautioned against “artificial timelines.”
Obama said U.S. troops would begin to be withdrawn in the summer of 2011 but “taking into account conditions on the ground.”
Bayh said there’s no guarantee of success in Afghanistan and stressed the need for Afghans to “do their part.”
“This cannot be a blank check or an open-ended commitment on the part of the United States,” he said.
A committee Bayh sits on will conduct a hearing today on the policy and will question Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bayh has been invited to the White House this afternoon for war discussions.
Lugar will question Clinton, Gates and Mullen at a hearing Thursday.
Souder, who said he hopes to visit Afghanistan again this month, said Obama accurately stated the case for increasing the U.S. troop presence there. He said he agrees that the Afghan government has to stand on its own and defend the country.
“But it’s not like they’re not trying,” he said.
